A kerfuffle in a falafel food hall [update 2)

People should be tolerant, respectful, and mindful of other people's choices. They should favour persuasion over force. Hands up all those in favour?

So what about the case of Turkish-Invercargillian falafel shop owner Mustafa Tekinkaya who barred a group of Hebrew speaking Israelis from his Mevlana cafe? ("I have decided as a protest," explained Mustafa, "not to serve Israelis until the war [in Gaza] stops.") How does our foregoing proposition apply to him? Simple: Just note the words his cafe. That is, it's his shop, so it's entirely his business who he chooses to serve, or not. It's his business, not yours, so he's fully entitled to use it to make whatever protest he likes. It's his right -- specifically, his property right.

Remember property rights?

This means bossy boots bureaucrats desirous of prosecuting him for "discrimination" -- yes, I'm talking to you, Joris Bloody de Bres -- should butt the hell out and mind their own business.

This means that Israeli nationals Natalie Bennie and her sister Tamara Shefa, along with Mrs Bennie's two children Noah, 2, and Ella, 4, should shut the hell up and accept that as long as force isn't initiated against any party, then people are entitled to do what the hell they like on their own property, for whatever reason they care to name.

If you don't like Mustafa's decision, Mrs Bennis and Ms Shefa, then don't call for the use of de Bres's bloody bureaucracy to bombard him with directives; simply avoid Mustafa's place next time you're in Invercargill for a falafel.

And this also means that if you're sympathetic to the plight of Mrs Bennis and Ms Shefa, which they say has left them "shocked and hurt" (oh, the horror of being barred from a falafel shop), then you can always do the same.

That's what it means to use persuasion instead of force, you know: not to reach for the government's club when you disagree with someone, but to recognise the rights of the situation and to use the power of persuasion instead -- which means in this case to realise that no rights are breached, not one, when a businessman chooses not to serve someone on his own property, but they sure would be if the government forces him to do so against his will.

And to realise too that when it comes to persuasion, the kind of persuasion a businessman most understands is the kind that leaves his pockets emptier.

UPDATE 1: Thanks to the editors of the Herald on Sunday who ran a heavily edited version of this post as the Blog of the Week yesterday.

UPDATE 2: If you'd like to respond to a truck load of delusion on this very simple point -- that you're entitled to serve or not serve anyone you wish in your own shop, and be free to take the consequences -- then feel free to respond to a whole thicket of delusion over at Kiwiblog, including deluded fools comparing the freedom to make your own decisions in your own shop with the Turkish massacre of at least half-a-million Armenians early last century.

Not PJ: Pharmacy Floppy Flip Flop

Bernard Darnton boldly visits the pharmacy with his floppy in hand, an account of which you can efficiently and effectively peruse on this web log over an interconnection network...

It’s time for a change. Change we can be flabbergasted at. At the end of last year the Ministry of Health proudly announced that (some) pharmacies would now be able to lodge subsidy claims electronically. Instead of by posting in floppy disks.

For younger readers, a "floppy disk" is a square of stiff plastic with a delicate scrap of computer storage inside it. It’s like a fragile, error-prone memory stick but ten times the size and capable of storing 0.001 gigabytes of data. In iPod terms that’s like having as much as a quarter of a song in your pocket.

I remember berating one my clients five years ago about using floppy disks. I’d asked for some data and he came back to me bearing this square plastic thing. I lashed him with my bullwhip because I’m a software consultant, not a fucking archaeologist.

He’s no longer a client but I think I was making a valid point.

Until December every pharmacy in the country had to post a floppy disk to the Ministry of Health each fortnight. Which means that they also had to find someone who still makes the bloody things. And presumably every pharmacy in the country had to keep some decrepit fifteen-year old computer in service because you can’t buy a computer with a floppy drive in it any more. Just to cater to the Ministry’s prehistoric whims. (They could always not ask for government subsidies but that’s a different topic.)

I assume there was someone employed full time at the Ministry of Health to open the mail, find all of these floppy disks and then copy the data somewhere or other. My guess is that it was this same bumbling jobsworth who refused to let anyone submit their files by email. “Oooh, no, couldn’t possibly. There’s this policy manual see. Very important that procedures are followed. We do it this way for a reason, you know. More than my job’s worth to go breaking them rules. Now, where’s the tea lady. I need a cup of tea and a scone before my nap.”

A highly-placed source in the Ministry has revealed that their flagship information system for the twenty-first century, containing electronic records for the entire New Zealand health sector, is $200 million over budget with progress at a halt because the Ministry’s IT department has been placed under a preservation order by the Historic Places Trust.

Somehow, the new electronic claims system has staggered to fruition. Alan Hesketh, Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Health’s Information Directorate, is very proud of this “initiative.” Apparently it’s “aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health payment processes across the sector through a secure and reliable interconnection network.”

If the Ministry’s spin doctors are paid by the word I think I’ve just found a way to save millions from the health budget. A tip, Alan: I realise that back in floppy-disk land this “interconnection network” is probably very new and exciting but here in the twenty-first century people just call it “the internet.”

Super? Shitty! [updated]

Two retired bureaucrats and a retired High Court judge have decided that 1.4 million people in the Auckland region need a super-bureaucracy to keep them properly in check.

That's the only conclusion I can draw from the Herald's suggestion this morning that the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance will assuredly be recommending a new "super" city council to "govern" the region and to meddle in "the social needs" of the region.

Just what we need. A new super-bureaucracy to make the existing uber-bureaucracies of the region look like friendly examples of small-government delight by comparision, and to give the super-bureaucrats a jet-fuelled rocket-propelled career path. 1.4 million people to boss around and whose "social needs" can be attended to. A dream job of meetings, memos and "super" action plans that will tell people where and how they can live, and what they'll be allowed to do if they beg correctly . A 140km strip of the country that the super-planners can dictate from their eyries, which will become even more untouchable and unaccountable than they are now.

A utopia for bossy boots busybodies of every stripe.

The nature of such a "super" city -- which will be truly super only in the size of both the city itself and of the egos of the people who will be clamouring to rule it -- can be gauged by how the smaller borough councils changed when they were forced to merge under Michael Bassett's force amalgamation of the eighties: from small agencies you could talk to, to larger bureaucracies who talked at you.

Ironically, last I read Bassett is not a supporter of the current "super" city idea (and I write this with only limited internet connectivity, so I'm unable to properly check that memory), but new Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide is. With boots on.

So if the Herald is correct, then, you can expect then to see small government advocate Rodney Hide announce in March that he will be giving his blessing to the largest new bureaucracy to be created in Australasia since Canberrs was constructed in the back of beyond.

Not the sort of legacy, I suspect, that Rodney's small-government voters thought they were voting for when they choser to throw their vote in his direction.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

First-of-the-New-Year Ramble [update 2]

Here’s what the boys at Brain Stab used to call a bunch o’ links; i.e., news, views and opinions around the web I’ve either picked up or been sent (for which much thanks) that you might be interested in too, most of which has appeared while I’ve been sunning myself in the Bay of Plenty.

Both the Wall Street Journal and Britain’s influential Spectator magazine are seeing strong parallels between the America and Britain of today, respectively, and the America of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, with scenes now playing out in reality that the WSJ says are “eerily similar” to those invented by Ayn Rand for her novel. If you’ve not yet read Atlas, then “now is a very good time to read it,” says the Spectator. Why? “Because … the reader [i.e., you] would find plenty of chilling analogies for the current economic collapse.” See 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years and Britain, by Ayn Rand.

And more on the economic collapse … Free Radical readers who enjoyed George Reisman’s insightful take on the collapse will surely appreciate his new “series of articles that seeks to provide the intelligent layman with sufficient knowledge of sound economic theory to enable him to understand what must be done to overcome the present financial crisis and return to the path of economic progress and prosperity.” The first in the series addresses “a disastrous economic confusion, one that is shared almost universally, both by laymen and by professional economists alike, is the belief that falling prices constitute deflation and thus must be feared and, if possible, prevented.” Read Falling Prices Are Not Inflation, but the Answer to Inflation.

And yet more. As D.W. McKenzie points out, The US Federal Reserve is pursuing a policy of monetary inflation out of an erroneous fear of deflation. The result is now negative real interest rates in most of the developed world which, as McKenzie points out, will necessarily lead to a cure worse than the disease – a disease, as you might recall, that was caused by the Fed’s earlier massive monetary inflations to stave off the bursting of earlier inflationary bubbles. Read Liquidity Traps versus Inflation Traps.

And yet more. Are you by any chance spotting a theme here? According to the flawed mainstream economic theory, when resources are idle, as they are in depressions, then governments urgently need to borrow and/or print money to put these idle resources back to work. It is on this basis that the likes of Bill English and Steven Joyce are now drawing up plans to spray $7 billion of deficit spending over the economy, and the backward economics of Barack Obama that presages the fantasy of his “green economy.” Austrian economist Robert Murphy attacks this flawed economic thinking head on: The notion is not only unrealistic, but “even if we conceded that the government could spend money in a way that only involved unemployed resources, the measure would nevertheless be harmful and would make the country poorer.” In other words, it’s a dumb idea. Read Does "Depression Economics" Change the Rules? to find out why.

As most of you are now aware, the leading symptom of the collapse both here and overseas was the housing bubble. A housing bubble that was pumped up by inflated credit, and exacerbated by restrictive building and planning regulations that has sent the replacement cost of new houses through the roof – a bubble that has burst, leaving (in New Zealand alone) a predicted 35,000 construction workers looking for new jobs this year, a sum only slightly larger than the net increase in jobs in the sector over the last five years of the bubble. A housing bubble that is clear enough to everyone now, but so few saw through when they were caught up in the hype. Hugh Pavletich, who was warning about the bubble since at least 2004, looks at the “housing bubble blindness” and those who were caught up in it, and what is most urgent now. And I’ll give you a clue, it isn’t pumping up bogus and unaffordable infrastructure projects that will only inflate the cost of building materials and building labour. Read Housing bubbles and market sense.

And my thoughts go out to the people of western Fiji and especially those from Sigatoka, with whom we spent a very pleasant few days just a few short months ago, and who are now suffering the effects of huge rains and massive flooding. A Fiji Relief Account has been set up at the ANZ Bank. You can donate at any branch.

Finally, in more cheerful news, artist Michael Newberry has moved from Brooklyn to Santa Monica, where he can enjoy “a flourishing community of friends, collectors, and successful ex- and new students” and where he opens his new gallery in March – and you can take advantage of the move at his Williamburg Studio Sale sale on January 24-25th, and pick up quality art works at reasonable prices.

Here’s more:

PJ O’Rourke’s speaking tour to Sydney, postponed through illness, is back on for April. Annie Fox has the links and details.

And speaking of Australia’s Center for Independent Studies, which is where PJ will be speaking, applications are now open for the CIS’s first Liberty and Society student conference of 2009, to be held over the weekend of 1–3 May. For more details and to apply please visit: http://www.libertyandsociety.org

Craig Ceely has another offer worth jumping for. Says he, “Quite a few of us in the west supported Denmark during the big Muhammad cartoons imbroglio. Now, it appears, Denmark is paying us back. As the banner … says, "No Burka on Free Speech." Delightfully, there is no burka on anything in this Siemens commercial.” Head here to see what he’s talking about. Quite possibly the best use of Wagner in a TV commercial. And other delightful stuff. :-)

And Jeff Perren calls pseudo-economist Paul Krugman a village idiot in the sort of village Ibsen used to write about. Read Enemies of the People.

And calls Obama's economics guru Lawrence Summers for his “woozy-minded” editorial in the Washington Post, giving everyone “ample reason to hang on tightly to our wallets over the next few years. “ “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” is Jeff’s summing up of the woozy-mindedness, “Unless perhaps it's the coming of Lawrence Summers.” Read The Newest Deal.

By the way, today in the US it’s National Delurking Day, “a day for blog readers to emerge from Lurkdom” and leave a comment on all their favourite blogs, which I’d like to think included this one. So say hello in the comments, huh?

Guy Barnett presents Give Peace a Chance? posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Doesn't everyone want peace? Can't we just put aside our differences and live harmoniously together? Find out the answer in this compelling blog post."

And check out Girls Gone Mild. "Virginity is all the rage these days,” says Guy Barnett, who clearly moves in different circles to mine. “This is partly [he says] because many people believe that the alternative to chastity is promiscuity. "Girls Gone Mild" analyzes this common false-alternative."

And finally (and this time I really do mean it, I swear) if you’re looking for fun and relaxation next weekend then a little press release tells me the Legendary Raglan Mudsharks are having their 3rd Annual Mudshark Monday, Jan 19th 2009 in the Harbour View Hotel (garden bar), Bow Street, Raglan, 8.00pm start. The "legendary" line-up of Sid & Freddie Limbert (bass, vocals & drums), Dave Maybee (guitar & vocals), Midge Marsden (vocals & harmonica) & Liam Ryan (keyboards & vocals) promises to keep you entertained till midnight. The evening will also feature some special guests & friends of the band! As usual anything could happen, anyone could turn up (and will) so if you wanna 'shake, rattle & roll' or just 'sit back & cruise' you'll be in the right place!

Welcome back

Howdie all, and welcome to another year – this one to be brought to you by economic chaos out of political grandstanding.

I hope you all had a great break? I know I did. Just ourselves and around two dozen of our closest friends at the perfect bach right by one of NZ’s best beaches … it doesn’t get much better than that. See what I mean:

Even if the occasional ‘bronze whaler’ did try to monopolise the swimming.

A big thank you to our host, and to those of you who helped make it the perfect holiday.

I’ll be posting a short ‘ramble’ later on this afternoon as I cruise around the ‘net catching up on news and views. In the meantime, I’d love to hear how, if you had a break, your time away turned out for you.

Tip Jar

In America, they tip. In NZ, we shout beer. If you like the service here at Not PC, drop a tip in the tip jar and you can do both.

Recent
Comments

Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009)
Patrick is in fact a close cousin of mine.

Thank you PC for mentioning him on your blog.

'I Am not a number - I Am a free man'
A sad loss.
oops PC the last link failed.

the display is correct but the underlying code has ".comlocation" tacked onto it.

SG
Well I'm in shock too. The Prisoner was one of my favourite TV series when I was a child (I didn't wanted to be a Jedi).Anyway, it is sad.By the way, Happy New Year to you PC and to C. Wish you all the best.We are finaly nicely settled in Oz. It's hot here. The blue mountains are still blue. Sydney is very busy.Happy to be here rather than in the frozen France. Marseille is under snow. Paris is freezing with 10 celsius degrees under 0. A terrible global warming this winter...Take care, cheers.
The Prisoner was a truely excellent series. RIP Mr McGoohan.
A kerfuffle in a falafel food hall [update 2)
Well said, Peter!

I wrote a similar post on my own blog, but the principle of the thing is what is important in this matter.

Most people, 'especially' a few self proclaimed "libertarians", I am sorry to say, believe that rights and freedoms only apply to those with whom they agree....rather than everyone.
well written Peter, on the nail as usual....along with Mrs Bennie's two children Noah, 2, and Ella, 4, should shut the hell up and accept...

Okaaay..quietly shutting the door now and walking away from the Libertarian freaks.
Whats wrong AA...? You don't control what happens on your property? You allow anyone who wants to to tramp all over your rights?

Grow up.
Well said.

I am going to shamelessly reproduce part of my comment made on Kiwblog (capitalism is all about efficiency after all):

When “human rights” are allowed to over rule property rights, e.g. if the cafe owner was forced to serve Israelis, then we lose our freedom. So-called “hate speech” laws are the same thing, i.e. they violate a person’s right to say whatever they like when they are using their own property to say it.

The cafe owner can properly deny service to those he disagrees with or does not like. Similarly other people can properly refuse to patronise his cafe or do business with him. Something tells me that the cafe owner is going to find business dropping off and revenues declining. Perhaps he'll think on why that may be. Perhaps he won't. It's his business.

LGM
LGM - I agree that the cafe owner should be able to deny service (and indeed access to his premises) on any basis that he considers appropriate.

My point was that there are a number of people who vociferously demand freedoms (such as free speech) for themselves that they also vociferously argue against others having and that it I suspect that this cafe owner is one such person.
Sure the two women did not have anything to do with what happend, but its his cafe. good post as usual.
Jackie

"My point was that there are a number of people who vociferously demand freedoms (such as free speech) for themselves that they also vociferously argue against others having and that it I suspect that this cafe owner is one such person."

And the cafe owner would realise that he needs to modify his attitude, or go broke - far more readily that if the Government told him to.
Last Thursday my son & I shook Mustafa's hand - and ate his rather fine kebabs.We usually frequent one of the other kebab houses - of which we are rather well serves here in Invercargill.

With his fine kebabs, best coffee in town and a penchant for exercising his property rights, he has my (slightly semitic) support. Sadly, such are peoples attitudes down here - it seems he may need our support more than ever...
Why on earth shake the hand of a racist for simply exercising his property rights?

As a libertarian, I agree that he should absolutely be able to say who may or may not enter his property, but that doesn't mean I approve of racist protesting, or think he's some hero worthy of support.

I wouldn't idolize a KKK leader for putting a sign outside his shop saying "Blacks suck", just because he happened to own the sign and the shop in which it hung. I'd think "Golly gosh, that guy's a dick".

It's hardly an act of heroism. It's bigotry.

I hope he goes out of business, because he sounds like a dick.

Whatever happened to "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"?
The Muslim owner should make it easier for customers to make a considered choice as to frequent his establishment by indicating who he won’t serve via a sign on the outside - not after they enter and sit-down with their toddlers.

Something along the lines: ‘We don’t serve Jews, Non-Believers, American Imperialists’ should do just fine.

Failing that idea, why doesn’t N.Z Immigration simply give all visitors from Israel or those with Jewish sounding surnames, say an armband to identify them?

I think you are taking this libertarian business too far on this one.

Paul.
Canterbury Atheist

The idea that the "N.Z Immigration simply give all visitors from Israel or those with Jewish sounding surnames, say an armband to identify them" relies on an assumption that the government owns New Zealand and ALL those who reside there. In doing as you suggested such a government would be "exercising its property right." That is, there are Government Rights, but no Individual Rights- certainly no Individual Property Rights. Such a situation is quite different from the owner of a retail shop refusing to serve other people or do business with other people. It is different from the owner of a retail shop behaving offensively within the domain of his premises and business. It is different from his erecting a sign- offensive or not.

It is important to understand what Libertarianism is and what it is not.

LGM
Yes, I must confess I wouldn't want to shake Mustafa's hand.

There's a vast difference between defending someone's right to do what they wish on their own property, and defending what it is they wish to do.

One has the perfect right to put out signs saying either "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish" or "No Bigots" -- just as customers have the perfect right to make their own choices based on such signs.

All that said, while I disagree with Mustafa's anti-Israeli attitude, in a time of war it's perfectly understandable that a chap is going to have strong views, and perfectly right that he should be able to exercise his own views on his own property without attracting the attentions of the country's busybodies.

Isn't that the adult way to approach things?
If this Jew-hater wants to exclude trading with Jews in his business – then of course that is his right.

But, don’t wait till tourists enter the shop sit down with their toddlers and make their order, and then be rude & abusive to them based on their homeland and religion – that is frankly obnoxious behavior & should be vilified.

This goes both ways.

By signifying you hate Jews, non-Muslims etc (via web site, signs etc) then the targets of your hatred will happily spend their money elsewhere and next time I’m in Invercargill people like me will make their choice to avoid frequenting their establishment.

Conversely supporters like you Libz can hold-up this Mustafa as some sort of hero for ‘the cause’ & keep shaking his hand and ordering ‘double-helpings’.

This isn’t about the Governments reaction (my opinion on Race Relations etc is much the same as yours) it’s about maintaining some civil dignity & not bringing hatred ‘from the old country’ to a new one.

Abusing and threatening tourists because you do not like their religion/country something I don’t want to see in New Zealand – whether or not it is ones right & liberty.

Gotta shoot.

Paul.

PS: Oh yeah I somewhat doubt this guy would have the guts to tell two Hebrew speaking males to “piss-off” or put a sign-up.
Not PJ: Pharmacy Floppy Flip Flop
Pharmacies should be grateful that the MOH is not still using smoke signals.

Now please excuse me while I go and bank up the fire. I need to send a message to my base hospital.
"...because the Ministry’s IT department has been placed under a preservation order by the Historic Places Trust."

W... T... F...!!!

So stupid on so many levels...
Super? Shitty! [updated]
It may be naive of me to hope, but perhaps the reason RH is in favour is that he sees that one big central bureaucracy will actually be less wasteful than a bunch of small ones, all duplicating effort and burning rates like dry leaves.
It would be exactly what Rodney Hide's voters expected, because he promised it.
GREIG: have you checked up on how much more wasteful, and how much more onerous, the likes of Auckland's present City Council is than the previous Borough Councils were?

Try submitting a building consent to the present monolith, and compare it to the process at the previous, smaller council, and then extrapolate this to the proposed "super" bureaucracy.

One trhing it won't be wasteful of is its own power.

ANONYMOUS: Which perhaps says all we need to know about the small-government credentials of both his voters and himself.
Off topic but this is tailor made for principled Libertarin debate etc....don't miss out!

Invercargill Cafe owner bans Israelis in Gaza protest...HRC outraged

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4818871a11.html
So I guess the answer is yes, it is naive of me. Oh well, perhaps if amalgamated it will be one target for slimming down. There I go again. I must need a pint.
"Super" city?

Really?

With decades of central planning interferences Ak has "developed" into a rather banal conurbation occupying an attractive location on two beautiful harbours. Here now is a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a vast new reichministerium which can turn the city into a breathtaking slum occupying an attractive location on two beautiful harbours. The opportunity won't be lost! That's for certain.

LGM
First-of-the-New-Year Ramble [update 2]
I read "Atlas Shrugged" twenty years ago and you've inspired me to read it again. Happy New Year.
Great to see you back Peter.I'be been posting much on the recession/ credit crunch based on my UK experiences.I'd be keen to see a Libertarian response to the follies Gordon Brown keeps coming up with.What ZanuLiarbore keeps doing isn't working but we hear little of alternatives.
Welcome back Peter, thanks for keeping the "Bunch O' Links" flame alive.
Welcome back
A lovely beach, isn't it?

I used to live at Papamoa, just over a decade ago. Great beach, but I can't say the same for the surrounding area!
5 days around Xmas in Tenerife where it was warm (22 - 28 deg C) but rained occasionally. One day back at the office (until 11:30 at night!), New Year's Eve on the actual banks of the Thames (jumped the fence and climbed down to the waters edge to get a better view of the fireworks at midnight before the police and fast incoming tide chased us back onto the street level.

Went off to Alicante for New Years Day and three more. Pretty cold, grey and wet ... but c. 15 degrees C warmer than London.

Now back and into a cold patch. Played rugby on a frozen solid pitch and am now brown, and black and blue. The brown is fading fastest ;-).

Over all to soon - thinking of a felucca cruise down the Nile soon.
PS Welcome back! Looking forward to a rambling rant! And yes, that should say "too soon" above.
Welcome back!

(Break? What's that? You mean an extended period when one does no work? Hmmm... I should try that some time. It's sounds like fun.)
Got engaged... :)
Engaged!